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Council fails to move container moratorium to vote, mulls next steps

No council member moved to adopt the container ordinance

By Paul Albani-Burgio

Times Staff Writer

Posted:
08/31/2017 06:57:51 PM MDT

Storage containers outside Black Gold Supply Inc. in Brush. Storage containers are technically not permitted in the city of Brush but the city has not been enforcing its own regulations. (Paul Albani-Burgio / Fort Morgan Times)

An effort by the Brush City Council to adopt an emergency moratorium on the placement of cargo or shipping containers in the city stalled out Monday when no council member made a motion to adopt the moratorium ordinance on second reading.

"Alright so does this die by failure of a motion to adopt?" Mayor Chuck Schonberger asked the council when no member responded to his asking for a motion to adopt. "Ok, then we will call it and move on."

The moratorium was being considered in response to the increasing popularity of shipping containers as a storage options in Brush. The placement of those shipping containers within the city is not listed as permitted use under current regulations and is thus considered unlawful.

However, the city has not been enforcing this regulation as more containers have come in. The Brush Planning Commission met at the end of July to discuss the cargo container issue and decided to work on specific regulations to address their legality.

Those regulations would need to be adopted by the council. The emergency moratorium had been proposed as a way to prevent residents from rushing to place containers in the city during the period while the council was considering the new regulations.

At the end of the meeting, councilwoman Vicky Quinlin asked the council to go back to the cargo container discussion to determine a next step.

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"So where do we go from here?" she asked. "Are we saying that we are dropping it altogether or is it just that we don't want to really declare it an emergency and further address it in code? I just kind of think we need to clarify that—what's our next step?

City Administrator Monty Torres said he was planning to again bring up the issue at a meeting of city staff and then in a work session with the council and ask them what direction they wanted to go. Torres said the city had lined up a consultant who had put together a container code for the city and said the council could still move toward adopting that code if it so chooses.

"Its up to the council and whatever direction you want to go," he said.

Councilman Heath Baker said he agreed with the need for another work session.

Torres then brought up the question of how the city would handle its current containers and any new ones that are brought in.

"The emergency was really just to stop it right away and get rid of that situation," he said.

Brush City Attorney Robert "Bo" Chapin responded that it would be incorrect to say residents would now be allowed to bring in new containers since the city had not passed the moratorium.

"I mean my understanding is that this is not a use that is permitted in our code and therefore it's not permitted," he said.

Chapin said a violation could result in a citation. However, Schonberger said that would depend on the city choosing to actually enforce its current regulations, which it hasn't been doing.

"Well if we uphold the current code they are prohibited but we just have to enforce or uphold the current code," Schonberger said.

Schonberger than suggested that it would make sense for the city to do so.

"I would think if somebody is racing to put one in right now they are doing it just to try to stay ahead of the regulations and, in that effect, we should enforce our current rules" he said.

However, the council left it at that and did not reach a clear decision about whether the regulations would be enforced in the interim during the meeting.

Regardless of what it does in the interim, Councilwoman Jeanine Anderson said it was important that council move swiftly to decide on and adopt regulations for the containers.

"I do think we need to move right along on getting the model that we are going to adopt and get it done asap," she said.

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